Abstract:

It is described a conveyor of specimen containers (9) supported by
carriers (8) in laboratory automation systems comprising at least one
analyzer (10, 50, 60). Said conveyor comprising a main transport unit
(2), at least one spur transport unit (4-5, 7) allowing the positioning
of the specimen container (9) inside said at least one analyzer (10, 50,
60) without removing said specimen container (9) from its carrier (8).

Claims:

1-11. (canceled)

12. Conveyor of a plurality of carriers (8) each one supporting single
specimen containers (9) in laboratory automation systems comprising
analyzers (10, 50, 60), characterized in that it consists of a main
transport driving belt (11) connected to spur transport units (4, 5) of
respective analyzers by respective connecting portions (6) including an
identifying device (12), a diverting device (99), a secondary belt (40)
parallel to said main transport driving belt (11) and a guide (14) which
ships carriers (8) on a going driven belt (41) of each spur unit (4, 5)
not parallel to said secondary belt (40), allowing the positioning, by a
blocking member (51) actuated by a detecting sensor (12), of the specimen
container (9) in the sampling position inside the respective analyzer
(10, 50, 60) without removing said container (9) from its carrier (8),
each spur unit (4, 5) being provided with a reverse running device (200)
including a friction disc (13) interacting with said going driven belt
(41, 42) and a return driven belt (41, 42) parallel to said going driven
belt (41, 42) to get the carriers (8) supporting the analyzed containers
back to the connecting portions (6) and thus to the main transport
driving belt (11).

13. Conveyor according to claim 12, characterized in that said reverse
running device (200) comprises a disc (13) and a spring (202) that gets
friction between the upper surface of the going (41, 42) and return belts
(41, 42) and the bottom surface of the disc (12), being the rotation of
the disc due to the opposite verse of motion of the parallel adjacent
belts (41, 42).

Description:

[0002]In the '90s Laboratory Automation concept started growing due to
labour shortage, labour costs increase, awareness of the exposure of
operators to biological hazard and so on.

[0003]It has been in above said years that institutions like the
CLSI--Clinical and Laboratory Standard Institute (formerly
NCCLS--National Committee for Clinical Laboratory Standards) started
working on recommendations for the manufacturers of clinical instruments.

[0004]Some of said recommendations were related to indications on how a
new analyzer should have sampled a specimen container: said indications
are today known as "point in space" sampling.

[0005]Such recommendations were suggesting the position outside of the
analyzer where the analyzer itself, with its own means, should have had
to send the sampling probe in order to sample the specimen container.

[0006]Said indications were aimed to get all the analyzer's manufactures
aligned to a standard to facilitate the design and realization of
automatic processing systems for specimen containers.

[0007]Said automation solutions are generally obtained with different
types of conveyor belts that move biological samples along a path where
the laboratory process is performed: such a process may have different
complexity including only part of the process tasks or may be very
sophisticated and accomplish almost any task related with the laboratory
process.

[0008]With analysers which are not CLSI compliant the only possible
solution is presently represented by the use of complicated robotic arms
and grippers capable to grip the specimen container out of the its
carrier and transfer it into their sample feeding systems. This solution,
generally known as "operator emulation solution", is very expensive,
complicated and generally not feasible for small analyzers because of its
cost.

[0009]As used herein, the term "specimen container" means a vessel that
contains a solid or liquid and has a tubular opening for access to the
contents, e.g., a test tube or vial.

[0010]As used herein the term "laboratory automation solution" means any
system that has at least one analyzer integrated into the system; the
system being capable to perform automatically the analytical portion of
the process.

[0011]Within such laboratory automation solution the specimen containers
are generally inserted into a carrier, which may (but it is not
necessary) have a tag (transponder technology) to allow its
identification along the process run and said carrier is moved along the
process by a conveyor belt and it is stopped, as convenient, to execute
automatically certain process task.

[0012]Object of the present invention is to provide a solution that allows
all of the analyzers that are not CLSI compliant to be linked to a
laboratory automation system that uses a conveyor system to move specimen
containers along the pre-analytical, analytical and post-analytical
process.

[0013]According to the invention said object is achieved by a conveyor of
specimen containers supported by carriers in a laboratory automation
system comprising at least one analyser, said conveyor comprising a main
transport unit, characterized in that it further comprises at least one
spur transport unit allowing the positioning of the specimen container
inside said at least one analyzer without removing said specimen
container from its carrier.

[0014]The spur transport unit allows to go inside the working area of the
analyzer, stopping the carrier with the container in a sampling position
of the analyzer.

[0015]The importance of this solution is due to the fact that most of the
analyzers are still not compliant with the CLSI standards as their
technology is still tight to technological constraints that are not
facilitating the "point-in-space" sampling and this situation makes said
analyzers almost excluded by the possibility of being linked to a
laboratory automation solution.

[0016]The concept of the present solution has been obtained by reversing
the idea that the analyzer should have had its own means in order to
sample, outside of its foot print, accessing the specimen container that
is presented on one side of the analyzer: the non obvious solution has
been the concept of being able to use an accessory equipment to the
conveyor system so to allow the specimen container to reach a position,
inside the working area of the analyzer, where the regular pipetting
tools of the analyzer can sample the specimen.

[0017]The characteristics and advantages of the present invention will
appear evident from the following detailed description of an embodiment
thereof illustrated as non-limiting example in the enclosed drawings, in
which:

[0018]FIG. 1 is a top view of the conveyor according to the present
invention;

[0035]In FIGS. 9 and 10 is shown an embodiment of a carrier reverse
running device 200 which comprises a disc 13 mounted on a vertical screw
shaft 201 with a traction spring 202 supported by bushes 203, with a nut
204 and a locknut 205.

[0038]About the operation of the conveyor 1 according to the present
invention, shown in FIG. 1, firstly a loading arm (not shown in the
drawing) puts a specimen container 9 from a sample rack module 20 in a
carrier 8. Detecting sensors 12 read the carrier 8 and a barcode reader
(not shown) reads the specimen container 9.

[0039]Now a PC process controller or control unit knows that said
container 9 is associated with said carrier 8.

[0040]Between two analyzers 10, 50, 60, the carriers 8 are moved by the
main belt 11.

[0041]When a carrier 8 arrives inside or close to an analyzer 10, 50, 60,
the controller, by the carrier ID sensors 12, decides if the container 9
supported by said carrier has to be processed by said analyzer 10, 50,
60.

[0042]There are three kinds of spurs according to the type of the analyzer
10, 50, 60 which might process the container 9:

[0043]1) a disc spur unit 7;

[0044]2) a straight spur unit 4;

[0045]3) a "L" spur unit 5.

[0046]In the first case, after carrier identification the carrier 8 is
deviated by a diverting device 99 on a secondary belt 40 of the
connecting portion or pit lane 6, which ships the carrier 8 on the driven
positioning disc 30 of the disc spur unit 7. When the carrier 8 is in the
sampling position 80 of the analyzer, the blocking member 51 stops the
carrier 8 and the analyzer starts the sample pipetting operation.

[0047]In the second case, after carrier identification the carrier 8 is
deviated by a diverting device 99 on a secondary belt 40 of the
connecting portion or pit lane 6, which ships the carrier 8 on the driven
belt 41 of the straight spur unit 4. When the carrier 8 is in the
sampling position 80 of the analyzer, the blocking member 51 stops the
carrier 8 and the analyzer starts the sample pipetting operation.

[0048]Finally, in the third case, after carrier identification the carrier
8 is deviated by a diverting device 99 on a secondary belt 40 of the
connecting portion or pit lane 6, which ships the carrier 8 on the driven
belt 42 of the "L" spur unit 4. When the carrier 8 is in the sampling
position 80 of the analyzer, the blocking member 51 stops the carrier 8
and the analyzer starts the sample pipetting operation.

[0049]In the last two cases the sampling position 80 is inside the
machine, in particular in the second case is depth inside the analyzer.

[0050]The choice of the type of spur unit 4-5, 7 depends on the
arrangement of the analyzer.

[0051]According to the object of the present invention, the container 9
remains always on its carrier 8, so that the link between them is never
broken.

[0052]When the pipetting is finished, the blocking member 51 disengages
the carrier 8, the belts 41-42 and the carrier reverse running device 200
send the carrier 8 to the connecting portion or pit lane 6 and finally to
the main belt 11.

[0053]In the carrier reverse running device 200 (FIGS. 9, 10), the
rotation of the disc 13 is directly driven by the belt 41-42. A correct
setting of the traction spring 202 allows to generate a friction between
the upper surface of said belt 41-42 and the bottom surface of the disc
13, being the rotation of the disc due to the opposite verse of motion of
the parallel adjacent belts 41-42.

[0054]Said reverse running device 200 is also usable in the main belt 11.

[0055]The container 9 is now ready for the next analyzer 10, 50, 60.

[0056]Usually in the laboratory there are further work stations, for
example a decapper station, a desealer station or a capper station (not
shown in the drawings).

[0057]When operations on a container 9 are finished, at the end of the
conveyor loop, the container 9 is gripped by a downloading arm, separated
from the carrier 8 and put in the rack 20.

[0058]The spur units (4-5, 7) allow flexibility inside a medical
laboratory, depending the conveyor arrangement on the building of the
analyzers.